Ideology: Another Kind of "Trap"
First, thanks to the folks at TPMCafe for inviting me to participate in this Book Club, and congratulations to Daniel Brook for the publication of The Trap. As someone who wants to write a book someday and who comes face to face every morning with the fact of an unwritten dissertation, I admire anyone who successfully manages to develop an idea to the point where it merits others' paying money to read it.
That said, I have to say that I find myself fairly unsympathetic to The Trap's argument and skeptical of many of its empirical claims. Let me tackle Brook's empirical case in this post.
First, it's absolutely true that income inequality has risen dramatically in the past 35 years. There is no single agreed-upon way to measure income inequality, but research by economist Emmanuel Saez and his colleagues has garnered the most recent attention.Figure 1 of this paper shows that the top 10 percent of households received about one of every three dollars in income in 1972 but nearly 45 percent of aggregate income in 2005. Figure 2A of this paper shows that people just above and just below "the middle" – call them the "working class" and "the upper-middle-class" – received a smaller share of wages and salaries in 2004 than in the early 1970s (Figure 5A shows the same for "the middle"). Even the people just below the top 10 percent received the same piece of the pie in 2004 as they did in the early 1970s. Anyone who tries to say that income and wage inequality haven't grown is to be derided as a hack.
Second, it's also absolutely true that housing costs in major cities and higher education expenses have risen quite a bit faster than inflation. Prices in general are about two-and-a-half times what they were in 1979, and compensation for workers is over three times what it was in 1979. College tuition and fees, however, are nearly eight times their 1979 level.In 1980, median metropolitan house prices were 3.1 times median metropolitan household income, and the ratio was under 5.0 even in L.A., San Francisco, New York, Washington D.C., and Boston. By 2006, median metropolitan house prices were 4.6 times median metropolitan household income, and in those five metro areas the ratio ranged from 5.4 to 10. While I don't have reliable stats handy, it seems reasonable to assume that costs have increased even more dramatically at the best colleges and universities and the most desirable neighborhoods.
Combine the facts of rising inequality and rising college and housing costs in the most desirable schools and neighborhoods and the result is that young idealists and artists must give up more today to pursue their passions than they did in the past. So far so good for Brook.
The first problem comes in Brook's explanation for rising inequality, which he characterizes as mainly a political phenomenon. His claim that the rise in inequality was mainly due to Reagan's tax cuts runs up against the problem that pre-tax income has increased as much at the top as after-tax income has (comparing Saez's pre-tax figures to the after-tax figures here shows that pre-tax income has increased more at the top).
The stagnation of the minimum wage also cannot explain much of the increase in inequality. The real value of the minimum wage in 2005would have been 40% higher had it remained at its 1979 level. As a rough estimate of what would have happened had the value of the minimum wage not eroded, we can use estimates from the progressive Economic Policy Institute, which show that about one in ten workers worked for wages low enough to be affected by the level of the minimum wage and that their income was about 60 percent of their households' income on average. If we raised the income of the bottom 10 percent by one-fourth (60 percent of a 40-percent increase, assuming that minimum wage workers are all in the poorest households), the gap between them and the top would remain yawning, and the gap between the middle-class and the top would scarcely be affected.
Unions have been in decline since the mid-1950s. Reagan can't be blamed for that. Nor can he be blamed for the fact of rising inequality in Canada or the U.K.
What's more, if we could turn back the clock and return tax rates to their 1979 levels, we'd get less bang for the buck than Brook imagines. The top 0.1 percent faced average tax rates of about 32 percent in 1979 compared with 27 percent in 2001 (probably a few percentage points lower today). Returning the entire top 1 percent to pre-Reagan rates wouldn't produce all that much money once redistributed to young college graduates and others in their income brackets. And of course, there would still be fierce competition for the top schools and neighborhoods—it's just that there would be more people bidding up prices by a lower amount on average rather than fewer people bidding prices up by a larger amount. It's not obvious that the East Village or Yale would be any more affordable than they are now.
Inequality in the U.S. has increased faster than in other countries and faster in recent decades for a mix of complicated reasons that scholars are debating, but one key factor seems to be cultural – we tolerate more inequality than we did in the past, and more than do people in other countries. It's not a coincidence that the U.S. lacks national health insurance systems and free child care, and it's not simply the fault of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy or some economic overclass.
Perhaps it is Brook's ideological filter that causes the weaknesses in a number of his other arguments. For example, Brook notes that the proportion of middle-income neighborhoods in twelve central cities was halved between 1970 and 2000, leaving just 23% of neighborhoods middle-income. This finding is his primary evidence that the problem of housing affordability he notes isn't just about competition for a few hipster neighborhoods.
But "middle-income" in the Brookings Institution report he cites refers to neighborhoods that are nicer than those he has in mind. A Washington D.C. neighborhood was "middle-income" in 2000 if its typical household made between $58,000 and $87,000. The sorts of neighborhoods Brook's young idealists and artists are likely to search out are "low income" by the report's definition, with typical incomes between $36,000 and $58,000 in D.C. The proportion of neighborhoods that were "low income" actually grew from 34 percent to 38 percent in the twelve cities included in the Brookings study, even as the share of "low income" households was constant. In other words, Brook's heroes had more affordable options in 2000, not fewer.
Of course, many past options are no longer affordable, and it's almost surely true that the East Village in New York, Adams Morgan in D.C., the South End in Boston, and North Beach in San Francisco will never again be the romantic places of Brook's memories. But Brook hasn't shown that his young do-gooders have few viable options, or fewer than in the past.
Brook also fails to present evidence showing that employment in public interest jobs has declined. Are do-gooder non-profits less common today than they were a generation ago? Are there fewer freelance writers? I have no idea, but I'm not sure that Brook does either. Nor does Brook try to quantify the number of young people working unhappily in for-profit jobs who would rather be in public-interest jobs.
In short, what's missing from The Trap is a sense of perspective that a more quantitative focus would bring. In a nation of 300 million, one can find and interview 100 people that share just about any problem. Whether we should be concerned as a society about their plight depends (in large measure, though not entirely) on how widespread is the problem and whether it is a worse problem than in the past or a problem for more people than in the past.
Reading The Trap, one gets the sense that these questions don't really matter that much to Brook, that he has simply used the plight of a coterie of young idealists—an existence with which he seems intimately familiar—as a frame for the many things he dislikes about America's political economy. Often, his politics lead him to make indefensible claims ("[T]he most an American woman can hope for is a choice between a fulfilling professional career and a large family. Having both is not an option.") and muddle his basic argument about inequality and how it unfairly restricts the choices of young adults. (Tell me again how the central argument requires a discussion of inadequate school funding for music education, Google's compensation of temp workers, corporations' hiring and firing practices, or colleges' admission policies?) Brook gets bogged down in his disapproval of Americans' consumerism and aspirations for upward mobility.
I'll try to consider Brook's moral argument in another post, but it's important to note that in judging the merits of his social criticism, the strengths of the empirical and moral arguments are intimately linked. It's surely true, for example, that the East Village and the Castro have become unaffordable for many young idealists. What's less clear is how many have a hard time finding affordable housing in safe neighborhoods that are sufficiently close to work. If Brook's moral argument is that young idealists have a right to live without roommates in the East Village to pursue whatever their passion is, that's a much less compelling argument than asserting that they have a right to live in a neighborhood that neither bankrupts nor imperils them if they work for the going rate for idealists and accept reasonable compromises in their lifestyle. Showing us that lots of people can't afford to live in the East Village anymore isn't sufficient if one wants to make the moral case that we have an important national problem on our hands.
We do have important national problems on our hands -- I am greatly concerned about unequal opportunity and poverty, about housing affordability and access to college, and I could be persuaded that I should worry more about the problem Brook is trying to put on the agenda. But I think I still need to be persuaded.
Could part of the answer be in the generational blip of the baby boom and the aspirations of the boomer's parents moving through our society? You had an entire "hugest generation" and their parents suddenly expecting the fruits of a meritocracy, everyone entitled to have a higher education than their parents, make more than their parents, have a bigger house and more cars than their parents, etc. With everyone expecting Horatio Alger all at once, many were bound to lose just as some won? Europe had a baby boom, too, but they didn't always buy into that myth? Just askin', just occurred to me from reading your post, not sure.
October 16, 2007 5:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's surely true, for example, that the East Village and the Castro have become unaffordable for many young idealists.
I think the point is also the decline of "Cafe society"--in which young idealists with no cars could walk to a local place and talk to other young idealists with no cars. In my growing town here in South Carolina (which is certainly not the East Village or anywhere close to that), the kids can't afford to live downtown where they could walk to a local cafe or book store or whatever it is, and brainstorm ideas. Everybody has to have a car, which automatically means a certain income level. And that income level might not give birth to the kinds of planet-changing ideas we are talking about...
I like both of your comments, and fully intend to read the book, too!
October 16, 2007 5:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
The supposed explanation -- that we have more inequality these days because we tolerate more inequality these days -- seems to me awfully circular. And we tolerate more because...?
Now, if the answer were "because we were sold a bill of goods by conservatives," it'd be debatable, but it'd be an answer. But then it'd be the explanation he rejects. (Krugman's variant on this, that it's because social programs could be pictured as favoring blacks, sure seems to me worth pursuing, but what do I know.)
So we better keep asking something, no? Otherwise, this was a long post in which I had a lot of trouble pulling out the point other than "gosh, I know things got a lot tougher, but it's fine, honest."
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
October 16, 2007 6:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Talk about an idealogical prison! Scott Winship makes a number of claims that just happen to back up Third Way talking points.
For example, Third Way has long warned Democrats against campaigning on the minimum wage, arguing that it's not a "middle class" issue and that it doesn't address economic inequality.
Socially, Third Way doesn't care much about urban Bohemians and the like. Third Way is more about working American families with more conventional tastes. You know, the kind of people who like Oprah. On social issues, Third Way recently callled for "An End to the Culture War" and an alliance with Evangelicals that seriously reads more like capitulation than compromise. Seriously, read the section on equal rights for homosexuals. That kind of talk woult never fly in the East Village. But, Third Way doesn't care. This is not an organization with edgy, urban values.
Winship's looking at this book through the Tird Way prism and Third Way's view of the world is out of step with the youthful, idealistic heroes of Brooks' book.
Winship and Third Way represent the kinds of Democrats that think violent movies and video games are a problem. Brooks' heroes are the outsiders artists and activists who enjoy that kind of thing.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
October 16, 2007 6:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
We're not enemies.
Our other arguments were pretty good and I think folks who know me here no I'm not exactly mean, though I can be spirited.
Anyway, do check out the Third Way site, folks. particularly the 46 pages document about ending the culture war and you'll all see my point which is that this way of thinking is just so at odds with what Brooks is writing about that Winship's coming at this from an idealogical prison of his own.
See, Scott... nothing personal. You're just wrong! That was a joke.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
October 16, 2007 6:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Re: Everybody has to have a car, which automatically means a certain income level.
But that doesn't mean you have to have a new car, or something so expensive it must be financed. When I was growing up a lot of older teenagers had cars. They were mostly pathetic old junkers, but they ran (more or less) and could be had for a couple hundred dollars. Nowadays I suppose it's three or four times that, but hardly out of reach for a person of modest means.
October 16, 2007 9:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
He's arguing that they used to be able to afford decent lifestyles and now they can't.
Although to be fair, nobody can afford a decent lifestyle these days. I work in one of the most corporate jobs ever, make more than the median for my area, and I can't afford a house, am drowning in school loans, and am just thankful I have healthcare...
Perhaps you missed Michelle Malkin, conservative blogger, complaining that she couldn't afford decent healthcare?
Truth is, nobody young is doing well these days - conservative or liberal - yes, a few struck it rich with some real estate or dot.com or the hedge or trust fund, or war profiteering, but all that's really just luck. There's not enough of those golden tickets around, and you might as well have winning the lottery as your career plan.
There's also a small group of people with insanely good credentials who are working as virtual slaves 80-90 hours a week in law firms, consulting firms, hedge funds, or entrepreneurs. They are making enough money to do pretty well. If you read the NY Times, they are apparently the entire universe.
I think the difference between young conservatives and young liberals is that young conservatives think if they just become part of the machine and are ruthless enough then eventually they'll claw their way to the top, and young liberals think the young conservatives are kidding themselves, and pretty pathetic about it, too (which explains why there are fewer and fewer young conservatives, thank god).
October 16, 2007 12:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Conservatives nurture their young talent from college through retirement.
Wanted to add... conservatives nuture their young talent because that young talent is usually their own family.
I said a lot above about that nobody young is getting by these days, but almost anyone who IS getting by is doing it with some serious wealth/connections transference from the previous generation.
Most of the people I know who are working non-profits are not as worried about their future decent lifestyles because they are either currently getting or expecting help from the parents. And most of the conservatives who are out there being nutured in their corporate/political machine (is there a difference these days, thanks to K street) jobs have more accurately been nutured by their families to take those jobs. Erik Prince is not exactly a rags to riches story, you know.
October 16, 2007 12:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, lack of healthcare is a blight.
Don't harsh on drugs!
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
October 16, 2007 12:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Conservatives nurture their young talent from college through retirement. They provide networks, mentoring, jobs, even housing for their people, and it shows in the massive political machine they have been able to build.
Liberals chew up and spit out their young talent. They pay them crap wages, then tell them if they can't make ends meet it's because they don't care enough about the "cause," whatever it is. They don't nurture talent, which is why nonprofit organizations will be facing a crisis in management in the next 10 years as entrenched management retires and there are few up-and-comers in the pipeline.
Brook isn't arguing that idealists should be able to live where they want. He's arguing that they used to be able to afford decent lifestyles and now they can't. I don't see why liberals want a good life for everyone except the people who work for their causes.
October 16, 2007 1:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah my arch nemesis, destor23. I'm not getting into it with you again -- if folks want to know why they can check out our exchanges in earlier Cafe posts by searching for my past posts. I've just never found it productive to argue with him.
Anyway, I should have noted that I'm NOT speaking for Third Way (and didn't even link to any of our products). I hope you'll check out our website and make up your own mind about us.
October 16, 2007 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah, but see... this is what Third Way is telling it's political clients -- that Middle Class Americans are not incredibly concerned with inequality and would rather have help paying for college or saving for retirement than have the government concerned with wealth distribution and the right to a job that you actually like.
Once you accept that, you really do look at Brooks and say "Tough. Get used to it."
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
October 16, 2007 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
John,
Obviously this is a very complicated topic, but I've always pointed to the fact that our nation was founded by folks who were so independent that they were willing to make a dangerous ocean crossing to settle in a complete wilderness. (Also, relevant -- they were a very religious group.) And ever since, we've been a receiver of the hardiest souls from around the world.
I think Krugman and others are also right to point to our "race problem" as distinctive too -- homogeneous countries tend to be more egalitarian.
Beyond that, we have federal institutions that make big change pretty darn tough, though again, the populace basically tolerates it. - Scott
October 16, 2007 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
right. i would say that the perpetual 'war on drugs' is the real blight on society. if we'd stop spending so much f@cking money on that bullsh@t we'd have a lot more capacity to provide the basic human right of health care (including treatment for substance abuse) for every american.
October 16, 2007 2:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think it is more of the "winners take all" philosophy. The top 1% don't just keep more (due to favorable (to them) tax policies but they make more too--top executive compensation shot up even before tax policies let them keep so much more of it. Top athletes and entertainers command far more (and keep more).
And we have been taught that those who make more deserve it, and that riches for each of us is just a big strike or a lotto ticket away, so we support regressive taxation. This is where culture comes in.
October 16, 2007 2:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
His claim that the rise in inequality was mainly due to Reagan's tax cuts runs up against the problem that pre-tax income has increased as much at the top as after-tax income has (comparing Saez's pre-tax figures to the after-tax figures here shows that pre-tax income has increased more at the top).
To that point, if earnings from capital have gone up and taxes on earnings from capital have gone down relative to earnings from labor and taxes on earnings from labor, respectively, and if high incomes from earnings from capital, then tax policy might be part of the explanation.
October 16, 2007 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
A cheap used car is maybe $5000 - averages out to about $1000 a year over the life of the car, until an accident or a repair job and then you've just doubled the cost of your very cheap car. Then you've got to ad in the cost of gas from a commute ($150/mo) and auto-insurance + registration + emissions checks, etc ($150 or more) and it is almost impossible to maintain a car these days (as a young person) for less than about $5000 a year.
Many starting jobs right out of college in big cities are for about $25K-$30K, so thats about 20% of your annual budget just on a car.
Of course, if you are living in a big city then you don't need a car, but they are going to add about $5000 to your annual rent for the privilege of living close enough in that you don't need a car.
Plus, you have to maintain your job or you are out of luck. No taking off for a few months to travel or write that great American novel or whatever one does in cafe society.
Of course, there's a reason that rents are so much more in the City. Anyone who's wealthy enough (or willing ot go into enough debt) to not have to drive a commute does so, and the rest are left to suffer for the previous generations poor transit decisions....
October 16, 2007 6:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I haven't read the book either, but I agree with your comments and would only add safety. It used to be that young people could live in the City (SF at least, although I think it applies to NY, too) and feel relatively safe. Neighborhoods were either wealthy or working class, but safe. Working class used to double as artists or idealists neighborhoods. Now neighborhoods are either wealthy, gentrified or unsafe. Artists/Idealists who can afford the City hang out in gentrified neighborhoods, like the Castro, and they have to be able to afford that. Or they commute and they need to be able to afford the car.
I wonder how much better the book's plans would work out if instead of raising taxes to redistribute wealth to college kids they put the money toward cleaning up neighborhoods and making them safer. Drugs and lack of healthcare are just a blight on society....
October 16, 2007 6:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: Of course, many past options are no longer affordable, and it's almost surely true that the East Village in New York, Adams Morgan in D.C., the South End in Boston, and North Beach in San Francisco will never again be the romantic places of Brook's memories.
Part of the reason is that these places, which start out as quasi-slums, end up being so desirable that people are willing to pay a premium to live in them: good-bye bohemians, hello yuppies. Same things happens with gay ghettos: North Halstead in Chicago and West Hollywood in LA are now unffordable, Wilton Manors here in Lauderdale is very nearly so. The solution of course is for the bohemians to find other run-down slummy neighborhoods to colonize. I'm wondering though if they are willing to do so these days? In their hey-day Haight-Ashbury and the Village were downright sleezy and more than little gross. Maybe today's youngsters demand to live too well?
Re: A cheap used car is maybe $5000
Most classified ads have a whole section of used cars for under $1000. Yes, they're in pretty bad shape but so were the beaters I recall my brother and his friends driving. You get a couple years driving out of them and then you junk them.
Re: Plus, you have to maintain your job or you are out of luck. No taking off for a few months to travel or write that great American novel
Um, that's always been true.
Re: Also, relevant -- they were a very religious group.)
Some were, some weren't. Don't buy into the Religious Right fanatasy that America was founded by hymn-singers seeking New Jeruslamen. An awful lot of our ancestors were rakehells, whores, pimps, drunks, ne'er-do-wells and even outright bandits who fled Europe with the law and perhaps an angry father or two hot on their trail. More than a few were even sent here quite deliberately to get rid of them.
October 16, 2007 7:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Part of the reason is that these places, which start out as quasi-slums, end up being so desirable that people are willing to pay a premium to live in them: good-bye bohemians, hello yuppies. Same things happens with gay ghettos: North Halstead in Chicago and West Hollywood in LA are now unffordable, Wilton Manors here in Lauderdale is very nearly so. The solution of course is for the bohemians to find other run-down slummy neighborhoods to colonize. I'm wondering though if they are willing to do so these days? In their hey-day Haight-Ashbury and the Village were downright sleezy and more than little gross. Maybe today's youngsters demand to live too well?
I highly doubt it, based on my experience of living in Brooklyn. Neighborhoods like Crown Heights, Bushwick, and Bed-Stuy, which were written off as crime-ridden ghettoes, are now being gentrified by the kind of people Brook writes about in his book.
October 17, 2007 2:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm harshing on drugs, and you don't know what you are talking about if you don't. People on drugs are scarcy. I'm talking about crack and heroin and especially meth, which seems like its everywhere these days and people on meth will rob, kill, whatever just to get that next hit. In some counties, I've heard that over 90% of all crime is meth related. If you don't think I'm right, you should go spend a few days with some meth addicts or around some serious homeless people addicted to drugs - not the nice pleasant kind who have already checked themselves into facilities and are trying to get better. Cities - and States - need much better response mechanisms to these things. Ever since Reagan gutted national budgets for treatment facilities in the '80s this country hasn't had a real policy for addressing drug problems, and any City that does try to address it is overwhelmed by drug users from all over the country and no other options moving and overwhelming their social services system. People need help and its a travesty for them and its a travesty for those of us who have to walk by them daily on the sidewalks.
Not every drug is about you on the couch with a bong and some munchies.... how old are you, anyway? Grow up and show some compassion...
October 17, 2007 5:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
I believe George Lakoff outlines the conservative career path in "Moral Politics." I don't have it in front of me because I just moved recently and it's still in a box, but as I recall, he talks about how conservative think tanks pay their interns and new hires decent salaries and provide them with affordable housing and mentors. Why don't liberals do this? Michelle Malkin might have had it rough a few years ago, but she didn't get where she is now by accident -- the machine helped her.
I don't think it's good enough to say things are tough all over. Things are tough because conservatives have been deliberately tearing our society apart. Liberals help them by failing to support the people who work for their causes.
October 17, 2007 3:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
i can't speak for destor, but i am very familiar with cocaine, meth, and heroin abuse thank you very much. i have my fair share of personal experience with these drugs. and i know many people who have struggled with them.
your self-righteous condescension doesn't make your apparent acquiescence to hysteria any more reasonable.
what you describe is not the problem, it is the outcome of the problem: the demonizing and criminalizing of intoxicants.
and need i remind anyone that the whole 'people on *insert intoxicant here* will rob, kill, whatever just to get that next hit' has been used for hundreds of years? it was used to demonize and criminalize that particular intoxicant i load into my bong while i sit on my couch with my munchies. anecdotes about drug induced violence don't make the hysteria campaign any more true of meth than it was of pot.
October 18, 2007 11:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
You said, "i can't speak for destor"... but I was responding to destor, not to your post, which I basically agreed with. So what Destor wrote is key to the tone of my response.
I'm sorry if my attitude came off as condescension, but his attitude really annoyed me, and sometimes that deserves a bit of condescension.
"the hysteria campaign any more true of meth than it was of pot."
While I fully agree with you that demonizing and crminalizing intoxicants, as you put it, is the outcome of the problem, and the whole approach should be changed (which is essentially what I was advocating above), I can't get behind this statement of yours:
"anecdotes about drug induced violence don't make the hysteria campaign any more true of meth than it was of pot."
This sort of "equivelancy" between drugs I find very troublesome. I think we can both reject the governmental statistics about crime and drug use because they tend to include people caught for doing drugs, or people who commit crime while on drugs, and confuse correlation with causation. Additionally, the current illegal status of so many drugs causes violence, which would presumably go away in a different drug environment. However, you also don't have any statistics to back up your argument, and anecdotes about misunderstood and gentle drug users aren't any more compelling than my arguments about violence and especially property crime attributed to drugs.
In the end, though, I find it hard to believe (if that's what you are realy saying) that people who are that strongly compelled by short term needs don't do things that are against their long term interests - namely commit crimes.
October 26, 2007 4:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
conservative think tanks pay their interns and new hires decent salaries and provide them with affordable housing and mentors.
You were speaking, I think, of an extremely small sub-set of the population who are on some sort of conservative gravy train. When I said things were tough all over, I was speaking of the vast majority of people in this country, including a lot of conservatives who don't work for think tanks.
Things are tough because conservatives have been deliberately tearing our society apart. Liberals help them by failing to support the people who work for their causes.
Conservative tear society apart because they are willing to hurt or pull a fast one on the majority of society in order to benefit a small minority of elites. As long as you are one of the elites, you are fine. My point was that as they do that more and more time get tougher for everyone, and eventually nobody will be a winner and more and more people will hopefully find themselves voting liberal.
I don't think liberals view the people who work for their causes as their elites. More like servants, perhaps. Haha...
Another factor is that most people will take a salary cut to work on a liberal cause, whereas most people need extra money to be able to stomach working for a conservative cause. Its just a reality that doing something that makes you feel good is a part of the complete salary package.
October 26, 2007 4:29 PM | Reply | Permalink